Free Mutiny by Mike Resnick Page A

silhouette of a large four-legged animal. It sniffed the air, caught his scent, and bolted in the opposite direction while Cole breathed a sign of relief.
    He continued walking for another fifteen minutes, and then he saw a shuttle of alien design approaching the mountain. It hovered near the spot where he'd been held all day, then began descending, and he lost sight of it.
    He felt pretty confident that any Bortellites that were still following him would be returning to the mountaintop now to replenish their air supply. They'd tell the shuttle about him, and he could expect the ship to start searching the mountainside. He considered altering his course, staying at this altitude for a few miles, and then descending again, but he rejected the notion; the shuttle could cover much more ground than he could. He'd be better off trying to get off the mountain than elude the craft while still on it.
    He saw another stream in the distance and approached it. This one was broader than the last one and flowing more rapidly. When he got there he took a step into the water, then another, and realized that this stream was almost six feet deep down the middle of the groove it had worn into the mountain. He stretched out and let it begin carrying him down the mountain, hoping he didn't hit too many submerged rocks. He rode the stream almost to the foot of the mountain and stopped only when it reached a huge mud-and-wood dam that had been constructed by some local animal.
    Cole climbed back onto solid ground, and in another five minutes he was finally off the mountain, or at least onto the vegetation-covered foothills. He knew that Pinocchio was to the northeast, probably two hundred miles or more, and he also knew he was a marked man. He couldn't simply walk two hundred miles in the open, not if the Bortellites had made as many inroads as he suspected. Besides, he was exhausted, and except for the stuff they'd tried to feed him in the afternoon, he hadn't eaten in more than twenty-four hours. His first needs were food and shelter; Pinocchio could wait.
    This was an empty quarter, but Rapunzel wasn't an unpopulated or undeveloped world. There had to be roads. The problem was that they might be twenty or thirty or fifty miles away—and even if they weren't, even if there was one within a mile, he wouldn't be able to spot it for hours, until the sun rose again.
    There also had to be rivers flowing out of the mountains. A range this size would doubtless give birth to a major one, perhaps two or three. But the range was almost a thousand miles long, and he didn't know where the rivers were.
    He decided that his best bet was to walk to where the dammed-up stream came out—after all, some of it had to get through, or he'd have found himself in a lake when he reached the blockage. Then he'd follow it on the assumption that if any humans lived out this way, prospectors, fishermen, whatever, they'd want to be near a source of water.
    It took him about eight minutes to find the stream, and then he began walking alongside it. Suddenly his surroundings became a bit brighter, and he realized that Rapunzel's two moons were now overhead and reflecting off the water. The moons were moving rapidly through the sky. He decided to make the most of the minimal light they provided, and he broke into a trot. He felt he'd covered about four miles when the moons disappeared over the horizon, one right after the other, and he slowed his pace, fearful of twisting or breaking an ankle in the darkness.
    After another mile the stream was joined by a bigger, broader stream, and became a small river. Cole realized that he was near the limit of his physical endurance, so he looked around for a log, found one, and carried it into the river. He had hoped to straddle it and ride it like a long-extinct horse, but he couldn't adjust his weight properly and it kept shooting out from under him. Finally he settled for stretching out behind it and letting it pull him downstream.
    He